


Future Reporter

by shezni



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, Radio Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 07:51:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shezni/pseuds/shezni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A future reporter gets his wish, although not in the way he expects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Future Reporter

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a 30-day personal writing challenge (that I'm already a day behind on lol). I might be turning this concept into a series, so be on the lookout!

Kevin Palmer had never had much luck.

               He had come out of the womb silent as the grave, with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, his tiny head shrouded by a thin veil of veinous skin. It had taken several minutes for the nurses to even coax a sound out of him, and even then, all he could do was whimper piteously. His mother told the story every now and again, but for want reason, Kevin didn’t know. He would simply sigh, erasing his amateur recordings that had been interrupted by his mother’s unwanted tales and occasional shrieks. Eventually, her shouting would subside and her eyes would roll back until only the whites were visible. She’d shuffle away in a trance, muttering about mirrors and blood as she went.  Kevin would fight the urge to cry and wish, just once, that she would smile at him like she did before the Reaping. But he kept recording. A future reporter must do his job, after all.

               When Kevin was four, he nearly drowned in the local lake a few blocks from the elementary school. He had slipped on his way to visit his older brother and tumbled down the slope into the frigid black water. The lake had seemed to drag him down, its icy fingers wrapping around his small limbs. After several agonizing minutes of struggle, he had surfaced, gasping desperately for air. He found his brother wailing and calling his name at the lake’s edge. He crawled his way back to the sidewalk and reached out a hand – a curiously dry hand – to comfort his sobbing brother. Puzzled, he’d looked back only to find that the lake was no longer there and a vast expanse of dry cracked earth was all that remained of his experience. When the two told their mother what had happened, she simple shook her head and told them to stop playing their silly games about imaginary things like lakes and mountains. The memory faded until it lay sleeping in his mind, only to be awakened in government-distributed nightmares. Painful as it was, he wrote all his visions down in his brand new leather notepad with the illegal pen he managed to conceal in his shoe. A future reporter had to be daring, after all.

               At age twelve, Kevin had his very first run-in with a librarian. He had been browsing through a book on radio greats of the 1950’s when he lost his grip and the heavy tome fell to the floor. He’d scrambled to pick it up, but by then it was too late. Even if she hadn’t been attracted by the sound, she would have been able to smell the nervous scent of his sweat from miles away. He had dashed through the aisles and hallways with the swift librarian hot on his heels, breathing down his neck. If it hadn’t been for the intervention of Larry Leroy (who’d wandered aimlessly in the middle of the chase and was knocked back several feet by the crazed galloping matron), Kevin would have met his end. Just before sprinting out of the library though, he had managed to turn and take a picture of the confused matron trying to take a bite out of the poor man from the edge of town. Once he arrived home, he stuck the picture in his slightly tattered notebook and wrote “MAD LIBRARIAN MAIMS MAN” underneath it. A future reporter had to be opportunistic, after all.

               At age sixteen, he stared in silence at the name written on the stones in city hall, the elusive guarantee, the ticket to another life or to any life at all. The promise of an illustrious profession, one that would fulfill his dreams forever, one that would give his small insignificant life purpose. He saw the name “Cecil Palmer” etched into the stone with bold, gaping lines, as though the mason were trying to split the stone and Kevin’s heart along with it. Anger, despair and poisonous jealous rose in his throat like bile. He took his beaten, weathered notepad out of his pocket and ripped at its pages while howling in anguish. He watched the pages float past him absently as all his initial emotion faded away and he was left with a cold, dark nothing sitting in his chest. He sat for what seemed like years as he lamented the end of his one and only dream.

               Footsteps.

               Hollow, metallic footsteps approached him from some distance, accompanied by a faint dripping sound. They came to a stop just behind him, the owner of said steps no doubt taking in the pitiful display. A red card fluttered to the ground in Kevin’s peripheral vision as he heard the footsteps dully clank away into some distance once again. He reached for the card. It was wet and disturbingly warm and smelled vaguely of iron. The message printed in bold black font said:

Strex Synergists Inc.

Radio Personality Needed

               Kevin’s mouth curled into a smile. He tucked the card into his pocket where his notebook had been and stood once more. Small red splatters made a trail outside of the city hall to some unknowable destination. Kevin followed them eagerly and without hesitation.

               A future reporter had to find his own destiny, after all. 


End file.
